


Three Brothers, One Crown

by bornfreeonebias



Series: Noblemen!AU [1]
Category: DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ, JYJ (Band), Super Junior
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-27 12:38:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8402047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bornfreeonebias/pseuds/bornfreeonebias
Summary: Jaejoong is the eldest. Jaejoong is the King. It is his birthright and crown by the laws of their people, and yet no one can seem to see the jewels on his head past the dazzling sight of his younger brothers. They are younger, kinder, more noble than he in the eyes of the kingdom.Jaejoong would give up his crown to prove how wrong that is.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This came to me after watching The Hobbit: BOTFA. Not that universe exactly, but similar to it.
> 
> A world in which Jaejoong is pure while wearing the skin of the devil, and no one is willing to see what lays on the inside. Yunho laughs and Changmin lies.
> 
> Warnings; un-beta'd, a lil messy but I wanted to write the opener real quick so I could move in to the next plotline . Hope you enjoy <3

It hadn't always been like this, Jaejoong knows. Not before Mother died, and Father lost his kindness.

Like most heartless men with power, the men and women under his reign suffered. Though they hadn't gone to war with the neighboring kingdoms, the threat of war existed from the day the Queen died to the day her husband followed her to the afterlife.

The people hadn't quite recovered from that after Jaejoong took the throne, nor had the peace treaties signed within a few seasons done anything to appease the anger the people still felt towards the elite class that really, couldn't actually change anything after all.

But that wasn't what Jaejoong had to worry about. His greatest concern wasn't the rage of his people, wasn't the tension still bleeding through the borders from other towns wronged by his Father, wasn't even the constant bantering of the noble class to change this, change that.

What the real problem for Jaejoong was happened to exist in two forms, and both were just as awful as the other.

Changmin, he was the hardest thing to deal with. Jaejoong would make a decision and Changmin would oppose. Jaejoong could ask Changmin for a glass of water at dinner and Changmin would scoff and spit, 'What, can't a mighty king like you tend to himself? Of course not. You never managed to care of your own kingdom either.'

Those often were the lightest of remarks he received from Changmin, as most of the others involved Jaejoong's mind, soul, and body.

'You believe that crown makes you beautiful? Pathetic.'

'When have you ever cared for any person besides yourself?'

'How could you ever be a king? Your own court wants to kill you off.'

He lived with this, but the remarks were just words. Jaejoong, though he never told his faithless brothers, prayed every night and morning for strength and sang songs of worship in his mind while the insults went in one ear and out the other.

The one Jaejoong couldn't use prayers to escape was Yunho, and all three of them knew it.

Though they all shared the same Father, their mothers were all different women appointed by the court to give the kingdom its princes, never a princess if they could help it. Jaejoong was a joy to the kingdom when he arrived. He was a hope for a bright future even before the darkness of their Father poisoned the land, though that hope from before didn't exist in the people anymore.

Yunho came next. The court named him second heir with promise to the kingdom and crown should the first Prince child not survive. He was an afterthought, but at least he was thought of.

Changmin was the bastard child. Two heirs were more than enough, and the court made sure to prove this by ignoring the birth of the King's third and legitimate son almost entirely. It was no one's fault, but his mother caught ill and died in the cold winter three years later, leaving Jaejoong's mother to become the Queen and Yunho's to become the Consort.

It was all very clean and tidy, the way they had ran the kingdom behind closed doors and empty rooms. And it worked. Trade was steady during those days. Travelers visited and later stayed if they fell in love with the people, which often they did. Disease had dwindled as the people had grown, much to the pleasure of the court. More population meant higher taxes, but they would never tell them that.

And now, after those same travelers picked up their families and went away, after patrons loyal to the crown have turned from their pledged services, after the King and Father was gone and the Son and First Heir was crowned, nothing could be worse.

Jaejoong had a broken hole of a kingdom handed into his stead, and whoever wore the crown bore the blame.

That was where Yunho and Changmin came in.

Jaejoong was much too wound up with official court dates, sporadic noble hearings, and writing treaties with more existing enemies to create time to spend personal days with his own people. Any free time he had was spent sleeping or eating, but even those things came at a cost.

It started with rumors. Jaejoong isn't the legitimate Heir. How could he be? His face remains young while his brothers mature. Some believed Yunho was the firstborn, and others didn't. After so long of hearing the whispers told to him by caring maids and man servants who saw Jaejoong's true heart, his true face and remained loyal to their new King, he learned never to trust. Never to show weakness.

It was Changmin that fed off that decision when he went to the markets and drew in followers by claiming how cold-hearted his brother truly was, how unfit their King was if he could not even trust the words of his kin. This struck a chord with more than a few people, and loyalties began shifting left and right. 

Jaejoong kept a man servant and a guard at his door, always making sure they were rested and more importantly, still true to their pledge to the King, nearly every night. The servant, Hyukjae, Jaejoong was very fond of. The guard, Siwon, he trusted above every other knight in his charge.

But no matter how often Jaejoong felt safe in their care, there was still something a man servant and a Royal guard could not do, never would be able to do.

They couldn't tell a Royal 'no'. And Jaejoong paid dearly for it.

Yunho came to his elder brother's room often, smiling politely at Siwon as the guard clenched his jaw and stepped aside for Yunho to enter. Sometimes he would send Hyukjae away, other times he would not. Jaejoong wished for the servant to stay every time just so he could see the same sadness and anger reflected on some one else's face and be reminded that he doesn't deserve this, never deserved this.

The beatings were common during the nights. Whips, rope to restrain him, leather belts meant for the stables, metal rods, anything new Yunho could get his hands on for when he paid his brother a visit he would bring. Jaejoong never had to wonder why the visits happened; Yunho reminded him every time Jaejoong was beaten and bloody by the morning.

'It was my mother that Father loved most. It was she who should have been Queen. It was I who should have been made King in your place. It must have been wonderful to watch your mother steal the love of the people while my mother remained the whore of the court. Wasn't it wonderful, King Jaejoong? Wasn't it?'

Sometimes Hyukjae would remain silent in the corner, other times he would cry into his hands to muffle the sound. It never really mattered though. Prince Yunho never heard the servant over the sound of Jaejoong's screams. It was always like this, each time he was hurt just a little bit more, pushed just a little bit farther away from the boy his mother loved.

The worst part about it wasn't the purple, the green and red staining his skin. It was the silence Jaejoong received by the court. 

They wore their silk clothes, polished their expensive heels, and told the King what he could and could not do, but no one spoke a word when the King sat on his throne with purple bruises around his throat, nail marks on his hands. Jaejoong never gave them the pleasure of seeing the rest of his body.

It happened, the battered King Jaejoong's breaking point, after one snotty nobleman with gold hanging from his pierced ears pointed to Jaejoong and called him weak for allowing his brother of beat him like a wild hog in a cage for all these seasons.

Siwon had taken a step forward by instinct to protect his King, but Jaejoong had gone eerily still. The eyes that watched him were wicked and hungry with desire to watch the King fall, and Jaejoong did not disappoint.

"If your King is so weak to be able to brave the strike of another man, let us see if you are the same. Bring me my brothers, both of them. We have business to discuss and falsifiers to reveal. And no one speaks unless I grant you permission."

They had flared up like fires at that, but they still sat obediently in silence while waiting for the princes to come.

Changmin had arrived first and smiled his princely grin while his eyes turned venomously toward the King. For the first time since Jaejoong could remember, he made no attempt to try and humor his faithless, greedy brother. Jaejoong pointed to a chair and commanded Changmin to sit. Changmin, red eyed and vicious, sat.

Yunho was not as easy. He strolled in, paid Jaejoong no attention, and tried to strike up conversation with a council member. He was confused when no one replied, and King Jaejoong had risen to stand. The purple of his neck looked like a brand in the dim light, but Jaejoong wore it like the man he was crowned to be.

He wore his scars like a King.

"Prince Yunho. I invite you to join this nobleman and demonstrate to the court why my skin turns black and blue when you visit my rooms."

If the other Nobles would have risen in protest or in defence of their fellow councilman, Yunho may have made more of a scene. But as it happened, the Council had become curious and stayed mum to watch. They wanted to see Prince Yunho cracking and shattering just as much as they wished to see the King fall. Yunho shook with rage.

"I have commit no crime-"

"Then this shall bare no consequence," Jaejoong replied, smiling handsomely and raising a bruised hand to gesture, "Please, show us your methods. Guards, toss him a chain. Yunho will not spare us a single gruesome detail, will you?"

A guard, one obviously stricken between obeying the King and obeying the Council, took a chain from his belt and held it out for the Prince to take. By then, Yunho trembled where he stood.

"I shall do no such thing-"

"As I say, or you are banished from my House, my Kingdom, and my Lands. Decide, brother." Jaejoong felt his heart pound in his chest when Yunho gripped the chain and took a step towards him, but he stopped when the sound of a sword across its sheath rose from behind Jaejoong.

Siwon. What a blessing of a man.

Yunho's eyes raced to find his half brother Changmin, but the prince was staring into his palms in silence. There would be no help from him that day. His royalty meant more than the other brother still standing in his way of the crown should Jaejoong die. Yunho seemed to realize this and looked back at Jaejoong in a last attempt for mercy.

What he found was two empty eyes. It looked as if he had finally broken the mighty King after all these years, but not in he way he had planned. Not in the way he planned at all.

The chain rattled over the stone floor in loud drags as Yunho turned to face the man who would determine the rest of his life. The nobleman began protesting immediately, saying it would be ridiculous for such behavior from a prince, it would not stand in this council nor outside of it, it was not fair, wait, wait please just wait-

Yunho struck him across the left knee and became the man he truly was when the councilman hit the floor, and the Council leaning over their drinks to stare and gape ate it up like dogs. 

Jaejoong saw every lash from the chain hit, watched each new line of red appear and later begin to bleed, studied how Yunho began to sweat and his arms began to swing harder, hit faster, go quicker as his adrenaline and desperation fueled him. The man on the ground couldn't even whimper when Yunho dropped the bloodied chain and turned to stare at King Jaejoong in challenge, but by then Yunho was being restrained by the guards for assaulting the man bleeding on the floor.

No one spoke. Jaejoong felt proud of that.

"To his rooms. I will deal with his treason later," Jaejoong hissed. The response was immediate. The guard had Yunho out the door before Yunho could even begin to scream and fight back, and Jaejoong turned to Changmin with a bitter taste in his mouth. He asked himself if he was finally going to be honest with his youngest sibling and felt no pity, no anger, no sorrow. He would be honest for the last time this day.

"I remember your mother. She was a star of magnificent beauty. I was a child and yet I could understand this. Her heart was kinder still. Fairer than my own mother in her generosity. And I could tell you now, Changmin," Jaejoong breathed and felt warmth in his chest, "She would hate you more than anything in this world if she were alive to see the poisonous man you've become."

The looks he saw from the Kingdom's elite class were well worth every bit of pain it took to walk out of that chamber room without the help from Siwon. He was the King. It was high time he started acting like it.

And from somewhere behind, bloodshot eyes watched the jeweled crown setting atop the wrong hair, the wrong head, the wrong heir. Though dozens of servants would hear it, no one would be able to find where that God-awful laughter had ever come from.


End file.
